Punishment

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT PUNISHMENT - PAGE 5

A state senator who hoped to revive corporal punishment in Montana schools has been accused of beating and abusing students when he was a junior high gym teacher in the 1960s and 1970s. Casey Emerson, a 71-year-old Republican from Bozeman, denied the claims made by at least seven former students at Bozeman Junior High School. The students included the allegations in letters to lawmakers urging Emerson's removal from the Senate education committee. "I remember a huge wooden paddle about 4 feet long with holes drilled throughout its length, which he used to beat me on two separate occasions," wrote Craig Menzel of West Yellowstone.

Pop star Boy George says he "quite enjoyed" his five-day stint cleaning the streets of New York, the BBC reports. The singer, whose real name is George O'Dowd, was ordered to do some sweeping up after he falsely reported a burglary at his apartment in Manhattan. "I was treated really nicely; it was worth it," the former Culture Club frontman said. He was worried about one thing, though: the clothes he would be given to wear during his punishment. "At first I thought I would have to wear an orange boiler suit.

If you ever have been the victim of a home burglary, wouldn`t you take satisfaction in letting the criminal know how it feels? If you lived in Memphis, there's a good chance you would have the opportunity. Criminal Court Judge Joe B. Brown permits victims, under the watch of police, to enter the homes of convicted burglars and lay claim to possessions equal to the value of their loss. It inflicts on criminals a sense of what it's like to lose property and the feeling of personal violation.

When young people get in trouble for minor crimes, the best punishment is one that will make them think about the consequences without hardening them toward more serious crimes. If it benefits a community at the same time, so much the better. That's the spirit behind an innovative effort being attempted in Chicago's Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods-the Alternative Consequence Program for Youth Offenders. Proposed by the Beverly Area Planning Association, it's being conducted in cooperation with the Chicago police youth division, Cook County State's Atty.

Dear Abby: Re: the 11-year-old boy who had been promised a weekend outing with his grandma, but because he swore at his mom, he was not permitted to go on the outing: You said the punishment was unfair because the grandma was also being punished. True, but you overlooked a far more important point: Once something is promised, it should be delivered-regardless. If the child does something for which he deserved to be punished, then find an alternative punishment. Many years ago, my daughter and her friend "Mary" (both in high school)

On two consecutive nights back in October 1996, an Oregon resident named Justin Edward Thorp woke up to find that his girlfriend had come into the house, slipped into bed with him and begun making amorous overtures. What happened next would surprise no one and ordinarily would not be worthy of notice, except for one thing: Thorp was 16 years old at the time, and his partner was 13. The girl's mother learned about the encounters and went to police, and Thorp promptly found himself in trouble.

The Good Lord has dibs on retribution -- "Vengeance is mine," he said, according to published reports -- but humanity is always trying to cut into line. We love revenge, savoring the swashbuckling theatricality of it all. Nothing gets us going like a good, rich, eye-for-an-eye blood feud. Revenge dramas have captivated the public for centuries, from "Hamlet" and "Moby Dick" to the Charles Bronson "Death Wish" movies and the TV series "The Equalizer" and "Vengeance Unlimited." We're enthralled by the Mafia habit of violent payback.

Park Ridge, Des Plaines and Niles are moving forward with a peer jury program to try non-violent juvenile offenders, the Park Ridge Youth Commission was told Tuesday night. According to Park Ridge Police Cmdr. Bill Hominick, the first juries will be drawn from a pool of 30 youths from each of the three communities and is expected to hear its first case April 3. Thereafter, the jury will meet in Park Ridge City Hall on the first Thursday of each month. The peer jury program allows non-violent juvenile offenders who admit guilt to avert regular court and the possibility of a permanent police record by agreeing to let their peers decide their punishment.

Q: What do you get when you cross a teen flick, Dostoyevsky and a jaundiced eye toward the suburbs? A: In the case of "Crime + Punishment in Suburbia," a teen flick with its head up its patooti. Actually, Dostoyevsky doesn't deserve to be dragged into this mess. Just because a movie contains a murder and some subsequent guilt feelings doesn't mean it has anything to do with the great Russian novelist. This movie, written by Larry Gross ("True Crime," "48 HRS.") and directed by relative newcomer Rob Schmidt, is mostly an arty, brain-dead celebration of beautiful losers, particularly the pale, porcelain-skinned Vincent (Vincent Kartheiser)

Sixty-nine-year-old Leona Helmsley has been sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion. The severity of the sentence is really no surprise-judges feel an obligation to slap brutal jail terms on high-profile, white-collar criminals. They seem to think such sentences prove that rich and poor stand equal before the bar of justice. In truth, the high-profile, white- collar criminal stands less chance of justice than a common street thug. But if the sentence on the obnoxious Helmsley was too harsh, what is the alternative?